BDW 3 «Суть волшебной жизни», занятие 3

(2:10 - 3:06)
Okay, dear audience, please prepare yourself. So far, we had a meditation from Geshe Michael and we were meditating on it with Bill and with Geshe Michael himself, also we've stretched our channels, we've prepared ourselves for absorbing the wisdom and we are in anticipation to learn more about emptiness and dependent origination. Thank you.

(3:07 - 3:49)
Welcome Geshe Michael. Hi, Francisco, Brian, it's 1.3, picture 1.3, yeah, okay, good. Thank you for organizing this class and thank you for inviting me, it's nice to be in Phoenix and it's a beautiful place, I think it's a beautiful place to talk, okay.

(3:51 - 4:41)
I should warn you now that we didn't have much time to practice your music concert, it's pretty bad, so just put some earplugs and come, okay, alright. The musicians are good, we just didn't have time, okay. We were talking about nang tong, and these are difficult ideas and a lot of people don't learn it, it's not, you can't learn it very often, but this whole part of the angel talk, devil debate to angel talk, is about the subject of nang tong, okay.

(4:41 - 9:59)
So nang, again, try to get an idea in your mind, when Geshe La says nang, it means what appears to you, what appears to you, and it's all of those things which are coming from pictures from your mind, okay, it's all of those things which your mind is creating with pictures, and by the way, it doesn't mean they're not real, okay. We used to teach it in New York, it was very funny, Nancy knows, Chen Stone [?] knows, but if some student said nothing's real because it's just a picture coming out of your mind, then I will tell them, okay, you go out on Third Avenue, stand in front of a New York taxi cab, and you will have the appearance of a broken leg, then you can go to the appearance of a hospital, and you will get the appearance of a big bill from the hospital, and it's all real, it's all those things are real, okay, so appearance nang, say nang, yeah, it's high tone, nang, yeah, what's a low tone nang, a hundred dollars, brah, wait, wait, wait, raise your hand, low tone nang, nang, nang, nang, nang, nangpa, nangpa, hmm, you're getting as bad as a word, okay, one is that insight, and the other one is kind of luminous light appearance, I want nangpa, nangpa, okay, cancel that, peach tree, buddhist, yeah, wait, not you, too late, hey, Rob, just give him the number to my bank account, we don't have to work so hard, okay, yeah, nang means inner, inside, nangpa means buddhist, inside person, and then say nang, nang means all those pictures that come from the seeds in your mind, okay, the result of the process of the seed opening, and the picture comes out, and make things, okay, but it's so fast, you cannot, you don't understand, you don't understand it, you never saw it, very, very few people ever see it, okay, that's called nang, then tong, tong means if you try to find something which is not made by your pictures, you can't find anything, okay, there's no such thing, that's emptiness, that's emptiness, okay, what's the hundred dollars, okay, ready, Peter and Maria gave me some money yesterday from my publisher in Europe, you know, what was the question? Huh? Huh? I can't hear you, okay, oh, I didn't say the question yet, okay, if nang is all the pictures that come from you, then what is tong according to nang? Yeah, okay, good, yeah, you can say that, kind of, yeah, if you try to find anything which is not coming from your seeds, you won't find anything, and that's shunyata, that's emptiness, okay, who's next? What's the Spanish, I forgot, vacuidad, okay, all right, so I want you to know nang and tong, okay, say nang tong, then I, today I want you to learn two more words, yurta, mepta, yurta, mepta, His Holiness the First Panchen Lama goes to nang, then he goes to dong, and then he goes to yurta, and then he goes to mepta, okay, so the word ta means edge, okay, it means like the edge of the stage here is called ta. Who can name a famous teacher who has ta? Wait, you've got to raise your hand, and I didn't offer any money, all right, you could wait until I offer the money.

(10:02 - 13:57)
Yeah, Tharchin was my lama's name, and ta means edge, in this case, ta means edge, tar means to the edge, and chen means he already went past the edge, he went past the edge, means he reached Buddhahood or something like that, his name was Tharchin, but in philosophy, ta means you went too far in your mind, okay, you went too far, and what you are thinking about is wrong, is impossible, so ta, in philosophy, ta means you went too far in your thinking, and there's a yurta, and there's a mepta, so yurta means you went too far thinking of what things are, yur, that's called yurta, and then there's mepta, means you went too far in thinking about how things don't exist, so yurta, you went too far thinking how things exist, mepta, you went too far thinking about how things don't exist, and those are the two problems for people who learn about nang tong, okay, once you understand everything's coming from your seeds, and once you understand that there's nothing that's not coming from your seeds, by the way, emptiness is always a double negative, there's nothing which is not coming from your seeds, that's emptiness, okay, so nang tong. How can you, so if I tell you, the person who is learning nang tong, they can go too far thinking something exists, what do you think it is? Yeah, standing went like this, or they think that things could exist without your seeds, okay, and you are not making the pen, the pen was made in a factory, and the pen writes things, okay, you think that, okay, there's a deep point that you have to understand, okay, the pen exists, it's real, the taxi cab exists, it's real, it can break your leg, and the pen can write things, okay, for three hundred dollars, tell me how a pen writes things? The pen which is coming from your seeds can write things when seeds are coming from your mind, and kind of touching the pen, and the pen never touched the paper, and the picture is coming from your mind, and viewing the letters on the paper, which are coming from your mind. I'll make it four hundred if you can say one more thing, but you got to three hundred already, so maybe, then how does the ink in the pen run out? When you are out of seeds for making this picture, having the letters on the paper, then the paper, you see the paper with no letters, when you're trying to write down something by pen.

(13:57 - 16:16)
Okay, four hundred. All right, all right, so THA, THA means cliff, I got it, oh, there's the picture, and there's a big debate about it, but basically, in your mind you fall off the cliff, and you kill yourself, you die. These two ways of seeing things wrong are called falling off the cliff, because they kill you, they ruin your life. 

So if you believe RGYUD THA, things exist too much, it means they are coming from their own side. If you believe things are coming from their own side, then you fall off the cliff, the existing cliff, the cliff that things are there, the cliff of believing that things are there. If you believe they are coming from their side, you fell off that cliff. 

Okay, hundred dollars. How would RGYUD THA, how would falling off that cliff that things exist too much, how would that affect your relationship with other people, especially irritating people? So if you're thinking that things are coming from their own side, and that they exist independently, it would mean that if you ran into someone who's annoying, you would think that they're just being like that, and that you didn't have anything to do with that based on your behavior in the past. Hundred bucks. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then your reaction would be to hurt them, to try to hurt them. Okay, and that's... if you want to know what it looks like when a person falls off the cliff of existing too much, they will not get along with other people.

(16:16 - 27:00)
They will blame other people. They will say, this person, I told this person a thousand times, they still don't listen to me. They're, you know, they really bother me. 

Okay, that kind of person is living at the bottom of the cliff. Okay, they already fell off the cliff. Mmm, there's a famous percentage, okay? The number of people who fall off the too much existing cliff is 99, and the people who fall off the cliff of nothing exist, they are 1%. 

For no money! Who fell off the cliff of don't exist? It's those who already know about karma, and they believe that everything and everybody they see, just projection, so which means they don't exist at all, and it's very dangerous because you can do whatever you want, because it's just your projection, and this way you don't feel too much love to them, because they're just, I don't know, illusion. Sometimes people give a hundred dollar answer. Anyway, okay. 

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, there's a very famous stupid idea that Buddhist people believe in emptiness, therefore Buddhist people believe nothing exists, therefore you can do whatever you want, because it doesn't matter, nothing's real, and there's whole hundreds of years of Buddhists in some countries sitting in front of a wall, and close their eyes and try to think about nothing, you know, just stare at the wall and try to think about nothing, and that's a terrible, tragic, terrible, terrible accident. This car fell off the cliff, you know, a whole religion, a whole country's culture, religion, a Buddhism of some countries, they just believe you should sit and think about nothing, and it's, it's an extraordinary mistake, huge mistake, it's a suicidal mistake, okay, so you know, you gotta be, okay. 

All right, so now you've got four words that I want you to remember even after the class ends. Nang, tong, yurta, mepta, okay, and feel comfortable with those, okay. Nang means everything around you, which is coming from you, and it, it has a little bit of a, when you see seeds in your mind opening, you will see that they open as a luminous picture. 

It's not just a picture, it's a little bit shining, okay, it has a halo around it, okay, that's, that's why they call it appearance. Pictures coming out, and the day that you see it, you will see those pictures with a little bit of a halo. Nang, like my head, John's head, okay, tong, Rick's head, tong, then tong means things that come from their own side, they just don't exist, there's no such thing, that's emptiness, okay. 

All right, then he says something, well you can meditate on those four things now, nang, tong, yurta, mepta. If you need a meditation, that's a useful meditation, okay. Then he says, it's the yin yang, you got it, you got it, the next picture, I think, skip the meditation picture, go to the next picture, oh, you can go back to that guy, yeah, uh, I explained it to the AI for about half an hour, finally the AI, the AI finally understood, and by the way, I cannot teach an AI not to do this thing, which is impossible to meditate like that, okay, your hands fall asleep, or you can't do that, but all the AIs believe that, that's a problem with AI, but anyway, so he's meditating on tong, the wall in front of him represents tong, but there is a nang behind him, which is his breakfast or something, okay, that picture is supposed to represent nang tong, okay, something appears behind him, nang, but he's also, there's nothing else which exists in the other way, that's tong, okay, all right, next picture you guys, uh, yeah, these two things nang and tong, they define each other, okay, they coexist, okay, because there's nang, there can be tong, because there's tong, there can be nang, they are intimately interconnected, okay, because things appear to your mind, because things appear to you through pictures, then they're empty of not appearing through pictures, okay, so those two things define each other, and by the way, that circle is all the things in the world which exist, okay, that's all, there's nothing else in the world, things are either the fact that things are appearing from your mind, or they are what is not that way, which is nothing, okay, that's emptiness, can you think about emptiness and it becomes nang? Now, when you see emptiness directly, is it a picture coming from your mind? It has to be, okay, it has to be, it actually has to be, everything that exists is a picture that comes from your mind, even emptiness is a picture that comes from your mind, okay, that's a difficult point, but that's something delicate, okay. 

Then I changed the translation, okay, so I finished translating this book 14 years, I finished it a few months ago, I finished the whole thing, it's about, I think it's 600 verses I think, and I finished it, and now I'm writing a little commentary, mini commentary, just to, I want to stay in the background and just throw in a few comments once in a while, for Buddhist ideas that people never heard of, you know what I mean, but I don't want to write a commentary, I just want to help people as we go, so it will have little comments between the verses for things that people never heard of. I don't want to do footnotes because it's too, it messes up the appearance of the poetry I think, and I don't want to, I thought about doing a commentary in the back, but nobody will look at it, so I decided just one flow, and then I decided to break it up. The angel and the devil switch places 20 times in this poem, okay, 20 times the angel talks, and 20 times the devil talks, okay, and they're just about equal verses, okay, it's just about 300 verses, for each person got democracy, the devil got to talk half time, and the angel got to talk half time, okay. 

I changed this translation, Tim asked me, did you change any translation, Geshe La, and I did change this translation for this verse, okay, and I'll read it to you now, okay, the verse says, for all the reasons that we've named here, that's a joke, okay, for all the reasons that we've named here, emptiness almost seemed to arise from the appearance of things, and the appearance of things almost seems to arise from emptiness, ah, can't you see what intimate friends they are, who's talking, angel or devil? Angels talking, okay, it's yin yang, the emptiness is defined by the appearance, and the appearance is defined by the emptiness, they are, they are creating each other, okay, but then he says, emptiness almost seems to arise, okay, I translated it originally as arise, okay, and then I noticed the more, I noticed more strongly the word dra, if you know Tibetan, the second line, the third line has dra at the end, which means seems like, okay, seems like, so I changed the translation to, it almost seems that emptiness is coming from appearance, and it almost seems that appearance is coming from emptiness, but actually, sorry, arises from emptiness, okay, it almost seems that emptiness is arising from appearance, and it almost seems that appearance is arising from emptiness, Why is it wrong to say emptiness arises from appearance and appearance arises from emptiness? Why is it wrong to say that? They are two sides of the same coin. I, by the way, I stopped using, in my lifetime, some ideas have become too old to use. Like a pen, okay? Nowadays I use this side of the iPhone and this side of the iPhone.

(27:00 - 27:16)
I don't say two sides of the coin. The penny was abolished, do you know that, John? Bad news. Yeah, they stopped printing, minting pennies because they're too small, okay? So you can't say two sides of the same coin much.

(27:17 - 27:43)
You'd have to say two sides of this bankrupt cyber coin bank. Okay, anyway, why you cannot say that one arises from the other? Tim, you want to try? Which is? Yeah, good. Emptiness is uncaused.

(27:43 - 27:59)
Emptiness cannot arise. Arise means you are born, you're small, then you get bigger and bigger and bigger. That's, arise goes like this, and then it goes like this, okay? That's a changing thing in Buddhism.

(27:59 - 28:17)
That's a changing, all functional things, everything that does anything. By doing something, it kills itself, okay? Emptiness and appearance never change. They were not born, okay? They did not start, they never started.

(28:17 - 28:27)
They didn't go, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Okay, they just exist or they don't exist, okay? They don't grow. They cannot start.

(28:27 - 28:35)
You gotta understand that. It's very important, okay? Emptiness cannot grow. Emptiness starts [?].

(28:36 - 29:08)
Emptiness begins but doesn't start, okay? Like this, my glasses, I made them in Shenzhen, I think. And so, they made them, they put them together, they took them to the store, they sold them. These glasses weren't like that, and these glasses will break someday, okay? That's the functional thing.

(29:08 - 29:36)
That's a made thing. That's something which started, okay? The emptiness of these glasses began on the day they were finished, but it never changes until you smash the glasses. Then the emptiness of the glasses is gone, but it doesn't go like this, do-do-do-do-do-do, okay? It goes like this.

(29:36 - 30:09)
Start, start, start, start, stop, finished, okay? It doesn't start like that, and it doesn't end like that. You cannot say that emptiness arises from appearances, and appearances arise from emptiness. And then when I was gonna teach it, I noticed he put the word, here, you can see it, dra, dra means it almost seems like, it almost seems like.

(30:09 - 30:40)
That's because he knows it's not correct to say emptiness started, or arose from appearance, and appearance arose from emptiness, got it? It's important to understand these things. You think it sounds dumb, you think I'm talking about philosophy, but if you cook your mind in these ideas, you will see emptiness someday. You will see emptiness one day, okay? So people are like, why should I see emptiness? I mean, for no other reason.

(30:42 - 31:09)
In 20 minutes, you will visit every planet in the universe. And that's, come on, you gotta do that, okay? It's unbelievable, there's nothing like that, okay? You gotta do it. If you can sit in these stupid classes, and then you get to have a 20 minute trip around the universe, even if you never do anything else, I think it's worth it.

(31:10 - 31:45)
I think it's worth it to sit in class for a few years. If someone give you a 20 minute trip around the universe, and you can say you met, people say things about people, I say, that's not true. And they say, why? I say, I've met all of them, and that's not true, okay? Then they're like, what? Are living beings infinite in the universe? Can you meet everyone? Yes, okay, it's very nice, it's very cool.

(31:45 - 31:55)
Okay, so get used to the fact that some things don't start. They come into existence, but they don't begin. They don't arise.

(31:55 - 32:11)
They don't wake up, baby, then get bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, then get older, older, older, older. They don't do that. Some things come into existence, and blink out of existence without changing, okay? And those are the big things.

(32:11 - 32:23)
Nang and tong are two of them, okay? Very important. Therefore, he has to be saying, seems like. It seems like each one is born from the other, but they cannot be born.

(32:23 - 32:44)
They're not born. They just happen. I've had the pleasure to teach 12 great translators for eight, nine years now, and we work on these words.

(32:44 - 33:22)
We try to work on these words. After eight years with the translators, and after 40 years before that, I'm still not sure what to call dependent origination, which I hate this word. And I'll tell you something interesting, okay? When you translate the word dependent origination, pratityasamutpada, you cannot use a word that means start, or arise, or grow.

(33:22 - 33:48)
You can't use a word like that. You have to say happen, okay? And you can say, so lately I came up with things that happen in depending on each other, or something like that, okay? Things that happen in dependence. You cannot say grow, okay? You cannot say that, okay? Nang happens from tong.

(33:48 - 34:40)
Tong happens from nang, but they don't grow, okay? They don't grow from small to big, okay? And I'm not saying that because it's philosophy or something like that. That's really boring, and I never liked it ever. It's very important to know that emptiness has a starting point, and emptiness has a stopping point, but it never grows, okay? It's just the way something is, right? So I'm playing around with events in dependence, or something like that, okay? Because event doesn't imply starting, okay? It happened, but it didn't grow, okay? That's something important.

(34:41 - 34:58)
All right. So, if you study Abhidharma, and we'll talk about Abhidharma. If you studied the original Buddhism, Abhidharma was the only Buddhism in the grocery store for 700 years.

(34:59 - 35:23)
Okay? So it's good to learn it. It's good to know about it. They will divide, CHOS NAMS SAGS CES SAGS PA MED LAM DOR PA'I DU BYAS NANG SAGS CES GANG ZHIG DE DAG LA SA NANG KUN DU RGYAS PA YOD SEMS MED NANG GI BSTAN PA DANG SDUG MA BYAS NANG ZHIG YIN DE'I DNGOS DANG NI SGOS PA'I DU DE LA DNGOS MA GYI PO Opening lines, okay? And it means that things can start.

(35:24 - 35:41)
There's things that start and die, and there's other things which happen and stay until they stop. Okay? Big difference. One is DU BYAS, sanskara created by causes and conditions.

(35:42 - 36:07)
The other one is DU MA BYAS. It exists, but it wasn't created by causes and conditions. My question to you, what's the percentage? How many things in the universe exist but were never caused? How many things, compared to how many things in the universe start from a cause, like your mom or, I don't know, gasoline or something.

(36:07 - 36:52)
What's the percentage? How many things start and come to exist, and how many things exist without ever starting? Without a process of starting? What's the percent? It's like, yeah, 99,99,99,99,99, to 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1, okay? There's, in fact, the Abhidharma opening lines, DU MA CAN NAMS SUM YAM TE, there's only three things in the universe that, according to Abhidharma, that exist but don't grow. Okay? And there's only three. NAM KA DANG NI GOPAN NYID Empty space, and the two cessations.

(36:52 - 39:38)
That's another story. Okay, therefore the first Panchen Lama wisely says it almost seems as if they grow from each other. Okay, he uses the almost. 

He says almost. Okay, dra, dra. All right, by the way, if I really taught you this text it wouldn't take 14 years. 

It would take a hundred years. He's extremely great philosopher. He's one of the top ten in history. 

Those of you who are studying Dalam [?] as a preparation for Diamond Way, it's a wonderful opportunity. It's a great opportunity. Okay, he wrote that. 

All right, but I'm gonna give you the same thing in a different way. Okay, so don't worry about it. All right, I'm not the same person who wrote the Diamond Way courses 23 years ago. 

Okay, maybe I'm getting older. I don't know. Just kidding. 

Okay, then he says, it's very funny, he says it's hard to decide who is more kind to you. Nang or tong? And you're like, wait a minute, Geshe La just said they can't be people, because they don't start. They exist, but they don't start. 

They don't grow, and they don't die. They start and they stop, but they don't grow and they don't die. How's that? Okay, then how can you say they are your friends? Okay, like if you say, if I ask you, who's your best friends in this life? You should say, Nang and Tong. 

You know, then everybody says, oh, where are they from? That's a weird name. My two best friends are Nang and Tong. Okay, and then he says, if you understand Nang Tong, that's your best friend you ever met in your life, because he saves you a lot of misery. 

It saves you a lot of misery. All the misery, suffering. I like the word misery. 

In English, misery means constant, long-term, irritating suffering. Suffering is just kind of like, short. Misery is years long, like with a bad husband or something.

(39:39 - 59:50)
Okay, like that's misery. So he says, why are Nang and Tong so kind? Why do they give you kindness? They save you from misery. Okay, they save you from long-term misery. 

Okay, why? Easy answer. Yeah, you don't yell back. You know, in theory, I still yell back. 

Okay, after 50 years exactly of touching emptiness, I still yell back. Okay, it doesn't fix your mind forever. It starts the process of freedom. 

But it doesn't fix your mind in 10 seconds. It doesn't happen like that. It takes many years of practice with emptiness to stop feeling irritated at people. 

Okay, I'm trying to confess that I still feel irritated at people, you know, sometimes. And it's so wrong, because I know if you ask me where they're coming from, I'll say, oh, I must have been irritating to my wife, you know, and I know that. But to change your behavior is very difficult. 

My teacher said that, he asked me one day, I remember I was sitting next to his chair up in his room, and he said, is there anything good about suffering? And he said, yeah, it reminds you to try to improve yourself. Okay, every time you get angry at someone, it reminds you that you're not there yet. Okay, so in a way, all the irritating people in the world are very good little reminders that you're not there yet. 

Okay, irritating people in the world function to remind you, you're not there yet. Okay, cool. Because, you got that picture? Come on, Brian. 

Nah, come on, next one, yeah. This is the reaction of a person who understands NANG STONG when they meet an irritating person. Okay, by the way, it doesn't fix the irritating person, but if you're the person who understands NANG STONG, then you will not get irritated. 

Okay, you will hold your, you will restrain yourself, which is called vinaya. Okay, you will keep yourself back from getting irritated. Okay, in this way, NANG STONG is very kind. 

Thank you very much NANG STONG. Okay, you reminded me that this person comes from my pictures. Okay, you reminded me. 

Thank you very much. I'm very grateful. Okay, they're coming from you. 

Every time you get upset, you are planting not one, but hundreds of new irritations in your life. That's kind of scary. Okay, every time you really dislike someone, you are creating many more people like that. 

Okay, so you gotta be tough with yourself. You gotta stop. Next item. 

So, I've been working for, I don't know, 50 years to find a good picture of what it feels like to walk, to step from planet to planet after you see emptiness directly. I've been trying for many, many years to find an appropriate picture, and I think I was trying to tell the AI to do something else, but it came up with this one. That's why the AI is a result of diamond way practice, because diamond way means the AI really is artificial intelligence, and it's sending you message, especially every time it messes up. 

Okay, listen, you can quote grandpa later, when AI messes up, it's Vajrayogini sending you a message, pay attention, pay attention. Okay, I haven't figured out why she's insisting that people have three fingers. I'm not sure yet what's that message. 

I'm working on it, but my AI came up with this picture, and I love it. If you have to say what it feels like to get to bodhichitta, real bodhichitta, after you see emptiness directly, in the next hour or something like that, this is what it feels like. Okay, just let that image cook in your mind, plant a seed in your mind, that's what it feels like, that's how you will feel when you are stepping from planet to planet, and it's very cool. 

You know, I have this film crew following me around nowadays, and they they're asking me stuff, and I'm just like, it's very hard to explain to you what happens, you know. I can say it, but you won't believe it, and you think I'm some kind of weirdo or something. But this is between us, right? In English we say us chickens. 

We're all the same chickens in the same group, right? So, I can talk about stuff like this. That's what it feels like, okay? And the question that first Panchen Lama talks about here is, he asked the question, what's the difference between karuna and maha karuna, okay? What's the difference between karuna and maha karuna? What's the difference between compassion and what we call great compassion, okay? Nyingje and nyingje chenpo, what's the difference? And anybody want to guess? What's the difference between compassion and great compassion? Don't forget what he's selling at this point in his book. Becoming bodhisattva is a great compassion, and compassion just like as you are human being is still compassion, but when you have the experience meeting every living being, then becoming a great compassion. 

Yeah, so you're right so far. Here's normal compassion, and then here's great compassion, and basically you said great compassion is bodhichitta. If this is bodhichitta in this picture, what happened between? Emptiness. 

Direct perception of emptiness, okay? Alright? You got to think of it that way, alright? You have to think of it that way. Do you have compassion? Yes. Why? You know, I don't like to see people suffer. 

I truly don't like to see people suffer. When I see people suffer, and I'm not suffering, I feel really sad, and I feel like, come on man, I can help you, I can really help you, you can stop suffering, you know? And then they're like, yeah I'm too busy, you know? And I'm like, okay, see you suffering later. And you know, I feel like I want to, I feel like I could help them to stop suffering, but they won't stay still long enough to listen. 

And then I've learned to respect that. I've learned to not be an asshole, you know? I just, okay, I'll meet you later, we'll talk about it later. When you're ready, when things are bad enough, check in with me, you know? So that's one thing. 

So there's normal compassion that we can all have. And then there's this kind of experience in the picture, after you see emptiness directly. And what takes it from compassion to great compassion is emptiness, when you see emptiness directly. 

Because for a person who's seen emptiness directly, suffering is so avoidable, it's so preventable. You really understand that people don't need to suffer. And then your compassion goes to a higher level, you know? Are you sorry about all the people who had car accidents this week in America, because they were smoking marijuana, okay? And you say, yeah, I'm sorry, I heard about many people broke their back, or smashed their head, or something like that. 

And then you say, do you feel bad about it? You say, yeah, I feel bad about it. But what if you could stop it, you know? That's compassion. There's one thing to feel bad about people getting into trouble and causing themselves pain, that's compassion. 

Great compassion is, oh man, I could teach you in five minutes how to stop that. You don't have to do that, you know? You've got to understand emptiness. Just understand emptiness. 

Emptiness takes compassion to bodhichitta, okay? Emptiness takes compassion to great compassion, okay? Bodhichitta. Okay, cool? And that's what His Holiness is talking about in this part. He's trying to say, how can you take things from compassion to great compassion? It's the experience of emptiness, okay? So, emptiness is not some kind of philosophy. 

It's very practical. And I wanted to say, you know, they make a big deal about, how can you say? They make a big deal about how normal Buddhist kindness is a good thing. It's a very wonderful thing. 

Without seeing emptiness, you can learn normal Buddhist kindness to where you truly take care of other people every day. Several times every day you do some major thing to take care of other people, and that's a delightful life, okay? I'm at the end of my life, I know. But, and I can tell you what's good in life, because I went through it. 

You still have to go through part of it. I'm pretty much through, you know, and I can tell you, I can swear to you, that taking care of other people is so cool, and so fun, and so yummy, you know, that you have to try, okay? If you, you know, it's the best way to spend your time, okay? And I did a video recently with some company. They said, did you ever take drugs? But you don't have to answer if you don't want to. 

I'm like, yes, I took drugs. You know, what was it like? Oh, you know, it's okay. And then I decided they were too temporary, and they also cost money, so I'd rather meditate. 

And we talked about that. So, I've been through a long life. I've tried almost everything, and there is nothing more fun than full time helping other people. 

Every moment, you know, every hour of the day, you know. And then sometimes I'm like overwhelmed. You know, he tells me how much money I committed yesterday, and I'm like, whoa, really? And he says, yeah, you gave ten to that one, you gave twenty to that. 

We're talking thousands, right? And I'm like, whoa, I don't know if I can afford that. He's like, ah, we'll figure it out, you know. It's a wonderful, wonderful life, just to keep giving to other people. 

To be super generous, and to keep doing that all your whole life, is yummy, yummy, yummy, okay? And you, I swear it's the best thing you could do, okay? I swear, there's nothing better, unless you can add emptiness to that. Because then you can do it planet to planet, and that's even more fun, you know. I call it, we should write a book, Peter, something, playing marbles with planets, you know. 

There are beings who play marbles with planets, Indra, Brahma, they're so powerful, they play games with planets, you know. There do exist such people. So, try to imagine being super generous, and making other people's dreams come true, on an interplanetary level. 

That's like, awesome. Intergalactic level. They showed me some picture from the Innovation Retreat, people were at Diamond Mountain, looking at the stars, and that big, that big bunch of stars, they are inside the Milky Way. 

You are looking down the, you are looking down the Milky Way, it's that string of stars there, you know. That's just one galaxy, that's nothing, you know. That's just a billion billion stars, that's nothing. 

That's like less than a zillion percent, it's nothing. There's zillions and zillions of those stars. I learned the word septillions, add 60 zeros to 1, okay. 

That's how many stars in our galaxy, okay. So, imagine that you were able to make people's wishes come true, on that level, on that magnitude, every day, every day, okay. Imagine that was your business, you know. 

People always ask me, how do I make a million dollars? How do you make the largest diamond company in the world? I mean, would you rather work in billions of stars, or you just want to have one jewelry company? You know, which is more interesting? Which is more fun? And these are available to everybody, if you can meditate on emptiness, okay. Emptiness makes normal, yummy love into galactic, galactic magnitude. You are helping billions of people at the same time. 

Somebody is like, Geshe La, I got 300 people online in my class. I'm like, let's go for a billion. Let's go for a hundred billion, you know. 

Okay, got it? You can do it. What makes the difference? What puts you from one game to the next game? It's emptiness. You got to see emptiness. 

This book is great, Angel Devil is great. I keep waiting for him to teach something else, because I'm afraid people are getting tired of emptiness after 14 years, and he's like, nope, there's nothing else. He refuses to teach anything else. 

Just 600 verses about emptiness, okay. Anyway, we got a ways to go. How are we doing on time? In five minutes, I'll take questions, okay. 

So get your questions ready in your head. Okay, next picture. Yeah, this is a dear, Hector and me worked on this for a while. 

Ellie and me worked on it, but this is a ... you know, there were refugees. ... their shoes. Do you want to buy ... anything they can sell? Do you want to buy some shoes? Can I get your ... And this guy had a woodblock print of the Wheel of Life. 

I didn't know anything about anything, and I opened it, and I looked at it, just like King Udayana, and I was like, that's pretty, you know, that's pretty cool. I don't know what it means, but it looks pretty good to me. And so I bought it, you know, for a few dollars. 

I bought it from him, and I took it home. And since then, we've used it on many books and things like that, okay. The Panchen Lama talks about the wheel, the cycle of dependence, but then he says, if you really want to understand this wheel, there's one important thing you have to understand. 

So, if you look at the wheel, on the wheel, the outside rim, there's twelve pictures, right? And it's supposed to be one triggers two, two triggers three, three triggers four, like that. It's supposed to be that the wheel goes like that. It's more complex than that. 

You know, ten is triggered from a combination of eight and nine, if you have two, like that, you know. It's more complicated than that, but, you know, we got this wheel of life, we got all these, we've got all these twelve pictures. Let's say they go one, two, three, four, five, like a clock. 

That's kind of convenient, by the way. The wheel of life and a western clock go the same direction, and they have the same number of divisions. That's kind of lucky, good luck. 

Okay, I'm almost tempting [?]. Okay, and then, so it's going, and then, but, it's called interdependence. It's not called dependence, okay? It's, okay, I'll say it again.

(59:50 - 1:00:21)
It's called interdependence, not dependence, okay? Two depends on one, three depends on two, four depends on three, five depends on four. That's okay, you know. One goes to two, two goes to three, three goes to four. 

But, on a deeper level, one is one because two came. Three is three because two came. Sorry, two is two because one came.

(1:00:21 - 1:00:34)
Three is three because two came, you know. I'm sorry, two is two because three came. Two is two because three came, okay? Later things cause earlier things.

(1:00:35 - 1:01:38)
You can't have a second link before the third link unless the third link is there already, which means the third link has to come before the second link, which means there's a mutual causation between things, okay? And it is the case that being irritated at your people around you because you don't understand they're coming from you, it is the case that that is causing you suffering, okay? But, that kind of misunderstanding couldn't exist without the irritating person, okay? So, there's a deeper level of causation where the result causes the cause. There's a deeper level of causation where the result causes the cause. The person who criticizes you created your criticism of other people that caused them.

(1:01:41 - 1:02:26)
The person that criticizes you was created by your earlier criticism, but that was created by the person who comes later, okay? And we'll talk about it. I think we're out of time today, right? If I keep my promise, remind me tomorrow, remind me tomorrow. If you really want to understand why you suffer, and if you really want to understand emptiness, and you really want to understand causation, you have to understand that the first step of the Wheel of Life causes the second step of the Wheel of Life, but the second step of the Wheel of Life also causes the first step of the Wheel of Life, equally, back and forth.

(1:02:27 - 1:03:10)
That's like, you can be nice to other people, but until you see emptiness, you cannot walk planets, okay? Which is the bigger being nice. Got it? Okay? There's something, understanding emptiness turns compassion into universal compassion, galactic compassion, okay? And then, understanding emptiness creates an understanding that things don't cause other things later, things later cause other things before. It goes both ways, okay? And if you understand that, you can be ultimately compassionate.

(1:03:11 - 1:03:53)
Okay? Then, what's that got to do with... What is it? The king's... The king... The king's affection, okay? If you haven't seen The King's Affection on Netflix, you gotta see it. This is the best of K-pop. K-pop is Korean soap operas, okay? And me and my wife kind of got into it, I'm sorry.

(1:03:53 - 1:04:04)
But they are so innocent and beautiful. They're just like BTS, okay? And they are beautiful, and they are extraordinary. Attorney Wu, The King's Affection, you know.

(1:04:06 - 1:04:19)
The only irritating thing... Oh, Crash Landing on You. I'm not so into that yet, but anyway. I'm trying to say... Netflix is really good at saying, see you in the next episode.

(1:04:20 - 1:04:39)
And you'll find out if the king ever kisses his tutor? Guy? Because the king is really the princess. Princess. Now I got you.

(1:04:40 - 1:04:52)
You gotta come back next time. Okay, I'll just... I don't want you to think I'm strange. Two children are born at the same time to a Korean emperor.

(1:04:53 - 1:05:15)
One is male, one is female. They come in to assassinate the male baby, and they assassinate the... Sorry. Yeah, they assassinate... They do assassinate the male baby, but the queen wants everyone to think that the male baby survived, so they bring up the princess as a boy.

(1:05:17 - 1:05:30)
And she actually makes it to take over the empire, and no one figures it out. Except for a romantic problem. Okay, so I'll tell you later.

(1:05:30 - 1:05:41)
Okay, any questions? Question from Malaysia. Okay. Hi, Malaysia.

(1:05:43 - 1:05:57)
Thank you for doing Malaysia, Jasmine [?]. Hello, Geshe La. We are here with teacher Nick and teacher Sarani.

(1:05:59 - 1:06:13)
Microphone is not right. The picture is not right. So we have a question from one of our smart student and excellent translator.

(1:06:21 - 1:06:28)
Hi, Geshe La. Hi, Geshe La. Thank you very much for your teaching.

(1:06:29 - 1:07:02)
We are really grateful for your teaching. We do have a question, because in Malaysia right now, we are going deeper on the idea of tsema. And one of the idea is, when we look at the things, what is the thing that making us to think? How do we realize different categories? That is the question we are trying to explore at the moment, yes.

(1:07:03 - 1:07:39)
So when we, for example, when we looking at the things, the cup or the pen, what is the thing immediately in our mind that we can think? Because a lot of people say that, oh, our mom taught us when we are young. But some people will say, oh, what if those people who live in the forest, they never got to be taught about pen, then how it is... Yeah, so that is the idea about tsema. Could you please go a little bit deeper on that? Thank you very much.

(1:07:40 - 1:07:43)
Thank you. Thank you for asking me to go deeper. I enjoy that.

(1:07:44 - 1:07:55)
Then it's not my fault if you get confused. I gotta tell this story. I'm sorry.

(1:07:56 - 1:08:02)
I like telling stories. But I think you remember stories. If I just tell you the answer, I don't think it's as easy to remember.

(1:08:03 - 1:08:16)
So I was talking to some people recently. There's this, they're doing a biographical film about grandpa. And they interviewed my brother two days ago, three days ago, something.

(1:08:17 - 1:08:41)
And so he was bragging about me, number one student in Arizona, went to the White House, got this award from the president. And then went to Princeton University, got honors at Princeton. And then went to study with my teacher the next day, the day after I graduated.

(1:08:41 - 1:08:58)
So I was feeling pretty smart. And I thought I was pretty big guy, you know. And then I went to my teacher and my Buddhism professor delivered me to my teacher into his hands and said, please take care of him.

(1:08:59 - 1:09:10)
And my teacher swore to make me a good Buddhist like teacher or something. He swore he would do that to my other teacher. So there's this big handoff.

(1:09:10 - 1:09:32)
And I'm feeling like the most important person in New Jersey at least. And then, you know, I spent 25 years with this really hard ass teacher. And he kicked me in the same place over and over.

(1:09:33 - 1:09:44)
And every time I try to say something, he would prove I was wrong. Every single thing I said. If I said the pizza was good, he'd say, no, it's not really.

(1:09:44 - 1:09:53)
And, you know, and it was like that. I never got a chance to be smart. Not even once.

(1:09:53 - 1:10:09)
He's just keep telling me how stupid I am. And if it wasn't for my extreme pride, I probably would have had a complex about it. But, so I'm like, then one day he said, hey Mike.

(1:10:09 - 1:10:22)
And I'm like, what? And he says, can you explain to me this word science? We don't have the word science in our language. They made up a word. It's called scenery [?], but it's an artificial word.

(1:10:23 - 1:10:36)
They didn't have the word science. They didn't have the idea of science. And he said, you know, I understand it's really the religion or the philosophy of your world culture, science.

(1:10:37 - 1:11:06)
What is it? What are some of the ideas of science? And I said, well, he said, for example, how does science say that the universe began? And I felt so joyful that he's asking me something that I can teach to him. And I felt, finally I felt like, finally here's my chance to show how smart I am. And I'm like, well, this is how it is.

(1:11:08 - 1:11:41)
In the beginning there wasn't anything, and then suddenly there's this Big Bang, you know, and with the extra-atmosphere telescope, you can actually observe the, you can get close to the Big Bang because it took time to get here. You can look back. If you can look a long ways towards the Big Bang, you could, in theory, you could watch the Big Bang happen because that light is still traveling.

(1:11:41 - 1:11:54)
The light traveling from the Big Bang is still headed to the universe, you know. So, he's like, wow, you know, that's great. That's where everything came from, right? And he said, yeah.

(1:11:55 - 1:12:05)
I said, yeah. And he said, well, is there any like main principle of science that science believes? I said, science believes everything has a cause. You just have to be patient.

(1:12:06 - 1:12:22)
No superstition, you know. I said, it's not like you're a monkey and you're a witch. So, the ancient Tibetans believed that Adam and Eve was a monkey and a witch, and they had sex, and that's why we're so weird.

(1:12:23 - 1:12:32)
They created the human race. And there's an ancient Tibetan belief. I said, we're not like those monkey and witches, you know.

(1:12:32 - 1:12:38)
We believe in the Big Bang. We believe everything has a cause, you know. We look for the cause.

(1:12:38 - 1:12:43)
You can cure cancer. You can make metal fly in the sky. You can do everything, you know.

(1:12:43 - 1:12:57)
And he says, wow. I should have known from his excited... This is an old debater's trick to make you an idiot. He's like, wow, that's so great.

(1:12:58 - 1:13:14)
And he says, yeah, everything has a cause. This is the very foundation of your... Really, science is your religion in the whole world. You know, people have their own little tiny Baptist and Hindu, Shakra [?], Bhakta, whatever.

(1:13:15 - 1:13:24)
But really, the world religion is iPhone and science. And he says, that's amazing, you know. Everything has a cause.

(1:13:24 - 1:13:34)
You can figure out everything from the result back to the cause. I said, yeah, it's amazing. And he says, wow, so everything had a cause, right? I should have recognized it.

(1:13:34 - 1:13:45)
And I'm like, yeah. And he says, wow, what caused the big bang? And I'm like, the big bang didn't have a cause. Oh, there's things that don't have a cause.

(1:13:45 - 1:13:50)
Yeah. The biggest principle of science is that everything has a cause. Yeah, but some things don't have a cause.

(1:13:50 - 1:13:59)
Right. And everything is caused by a cause, right? Except some things aren't caused by a cause, right? And I'm like, you're playing with me. Now I know you're playing with me, you know.

(1:13:59 - 1:14:17)
You are criticizing my belief that the universe began. And he said, yeah, I am. And I said, well, what's your option? What do you think? And he said, if the universe had a cause, then obviously it couldn't have a beginning.

(1:14:19 - 1:14:35)
Duh! You know, don't be so stupid, you know. If something's there, something caused it, okay? And if something caused it, the thing that caused it had a cause. Duh! And there is no first beginning.

(1:14:35 - 1:14:54)
And I was very, I felt very hurt and kind of angry, because I was brought up with the monkey and the witch. And I mean, big bang, you know. And he's like, come on, Mike.

(1:14:54 - 1:14:57)
He called me Mike. Mike, try to calm down. Try to think clearly.

(1:14:57 - 1:15:03)
By the way, that's Buddhist logic. Pramana means try to think honestly. Try to think clearly.

(1:15:03 - 1:15:14)
Try not to be swayed by your culture. Answer me honestly. Is it possible something could happen without a cause? And I say, no, it's not possible.

(1:15:15 - 1:15:24)
Then there's no beginning. Then it's obviously foolish and wrong to say there's a beginning. There cannot be.

(1:15:24 - 1:15:32)
Whatever was the first thing had a thing that caused it, then just try to get comfortable with it. It's okay. You're not a bad person.

(1:15:33 - 1:15:57)
There was no beginning, because any point you take had a cause. And that had a cause, and that had a cause. Therefore, if you are truly logical, and if you are unbiased by your culture, which is a huge goal in life, can you admit that there was no cause? First cause.

(1:15:58 - 1:16:01)
No first cause. And I say, yeah, you'd have to say that. You would have to say that.

(1:16:01 - 1:16:13)
Then I slowly started to get used to it, because I grew up in a Christian church, strong, happy Christian. Still respected. Still feel comfortable with it.

(1:16:14 - 1:16:38)
And then my first grade teacher said things had a start. My whole education told me things had a beginning. Now here's this guy trying to say there's no beginning, which means if you came to this world once, it's completely illogical to say it's the only time.

(1:16:38 - 1:16:55)
It's completely wrong. It's just by logic. If you throw the dice twelve times, you will get twelve once, right? If you throw the dice ten zillion times, you will get ten zillion twelves.

(1:16:55 - 1:17:31)
It's okay. That's the way it is. If there are causes and conditions for you to happen once in this lifetime, if time is infinite, what are you talking about you've only been here once? How can you say that? How can you logically say that? If you came here once, if you have all the causes and conditions to be born here once, and if time is infinite, if you throw the dice a billion, billion, billion, billion times, by the way, not just snake eyes or twelve.

(1:17:33 - 1:17:51)
Snake eyes means two ones. Billions of times the dice will land on its edge, on its point, and it will balance there. Okay? If you throw the dice a billion, billion, billion times, a billion, billion times it will land without falling down.

(1:17:51 - 1:18:01)
It will land on the corner. You see what I mean? It has to be. Therefore, you have seen and experienced everything in the universe countless times.

(1:18:02 - 1:18:11)
Okay, you have been, I like to say, Rick, you have been Miss America countless times. It was yesterday, I think, Miss America contest. I saw it in a newspaper.

(1:18:12 - 1:18:21)
But, you know, you have been everything. You have been president of the country countless times. You have been a mass murderer countless times.

(1:18:21 - 1:18:41)
Who are you to judge these crazy people who shoot people? You have done ten times worse, billions of times. So, every image in the universe, except for emptiness, that's another thing, is in your mind. You have seen everything.

(1:18:41 - 1:18:45)
You have seen everything. You have seen a cup. You have seen a pen.

(1:18:46 - 1:19:09)
You have seen all those things. When we teach those topics about the first mental image that you had of a car, or a cup, or a pen, or something, when we teach it in DCI [?], we cannot what? There's a certain line in DCI. We cannot cross it.

(1:19:10 - 1:19:21)
We cannot go to religion. And it's a DCI principle. If you're going to teach these ideas, you have to know the limits of your audience.

(1:19:22 - 1:19:28)
You're teaching a business audience. You do not go to former lives. That's a religious thing.

(1:19:29 - 1:19:47)
People take it as a religious thing. You have to have the good sense to know how far you can go with your audience. Okay? And if you're in a business audience, or something like that, you do not say your mental picture of a cup came from your 13,000 lives ago.

(1:19:47 - 1:19:55)
You know? Which is true, but you can't say it. So, that's just being a good teacher. A good teacher has to know the limitations of their audience.

(1:19:56 - 1:20:10)
And they have to go to what the audience can accept. So, I think a lot of us who are trying to be teachers, ACI teachers, five house teachers, you have to know this rule. You have to judge your audience.

(1:20:11 - 1:20:27)
There may be laws in the country where you are... I was teaching in Uzbekistan. Whoa! The police were circled around the room. And they're waiting for me to say something that's not correct.

(1:20:27 - 1:20:45)
And it was like walking on a tightrope, you know? And they were actually standing there. And, you know, so you have to respect the laws where you are. You have to respect that it's each country's right to make their own laws.

(1:20:45 - 1:20:56)
You cannot say to a country, you know, I know law better than you know. I'm American. You know, especially nowadays.

(1:20:56 - 1:21:14)
Okay? It's not a reason to say you understand law. You have to follow the customs and traditions of where you're teaching. So anyway, when we teach it in DCI, we go back to your mom teaching you a pen.

(1:21:15 - 1:21:44)
But that's just... Chang'e [?]? That's just for the audience. We're just trying to fit the audience. Okay? If you're in a Five Houses audience, and you can say whatever's true and not get locked up the next day, or have your friends locked up, then you have to... Then you can talk about, look, you never had a first pen experience.

(1:21:45 - 1:21:52)
You never saw your first pen. Come on. You know, that's big bang.

(1:21:52 - 1:22:01)
You're talking big bang. Got it? You never had a first pen image in your mind. You never... There's never been one.

(1:22:01 - 1:22:10)
You've been having them forever. Okay? Got it? You alright? You okay with that? That's the truth. I can say it in a Five Houses audience.

(1:22:10 - 1:22:18)
Okay? If you say I said that in another audience, I'll say, you know, I didn't say that. Okay. Okay.

(1:22:19 - 1:22:36)
So, you've had pen pictures in your mind. You've had... Your mind has been defining pens since forever, since infinity. And your mind has been defining everything since infinity.

(1:22:37 - 1:22:52)
Then there comes obviously the argument, what about emptiness? Have I seen emptiness countless times? And the answer is, what do you call it? Unabashedly. I'm not embarrassed to say, no. You haven't got to the first one yet.

(1:22:53 - 1:22:57)
It is possible. That's also possible. That is also possible.

(1:22:57 - 1:23:09)
It happens to be the case. I like to say we are in the back row of the galaxy class. Most planets already got enlightened a long time ago.

(1:23:09 - 1:23:19)
Okay? We're like the stupid of the stupid. We're like those fish at the bottom of the ocean who never saw light. We're the human race.

(1:23:19 - 1:23:26)
We are the bottom feeders of the universe. We'll get there. Don't worry about it.

(1:23:27 - 1:23:30)
Okay. All right. I think we have to stop there.

(1:23:30 - 1:23:40)
How long, Tim? Pachi [?]? We'll come back at 4.45. Okay. I'll sit here. I mean, I'll say hi to as many people as I can.

(1:23:40 - 1:23:49)
Probably I can't say hi to everybody. But be considerate of the other people. Don't start to tell me your whole life story.

(1:23:49 - 1:23:52)
Like half your life stories. Okay. All right.

(1:23:52 - 1:23:53)
Thank you.